A look at how the sale of the Dodgers could get complicated and how it could have a multi-sport impact

I know this is “Baseball” Prospectus, but sports business is a funny thing. There are such a myriad of intersecting factors—sponsorships, television rights, stadium development, digital platforms, and such—that, in a way, it’s like looking at art—you have to stand back from it to get the full picture.

So, while this piece is about baseball, it’s really about something larger. And, if matters land a particular way, it can change the face of not only one market but create a synergy between two sports leagues.

In years past, muscle injuries in the abdominal area were known by names such as ribcage strains, oblique strains, side strains, abdominal strains, or intercostal strains; with so many muscles overlapping in the area, it was hard to distinguish one muscle from the other prior to the advent of MRI. Now, we can tell the difference between intercostal strains and oblique strains and can treat each accordingly, but a question remains: Are abdominal injuries occurring at a greater rate, both by number and by position, than they have in the past?

Anatomy
As with most of the body’s core regions, many different layers and muscles overlap. The muscles we are most interested in when discussing abdominal strains are the rectus abdominis, internal oblique, external oblique, transverse abdominis, and intercostal muscles.

The rest of this article is restricted to Baseball Prospectus Subscribers.

Not a subscriber?

Click here for more information on Baseball Prospectus subscriptions or use the buttons to the right to subscribe and get access to the best baseball content on the web.

We shouldn't be surprised when players don't show the same appreciation for baseball history we do, but sometimes the truth still hurts.

In sports, familiarity is more of the heart than the mind. As player valuation becomes uniformly sophisticated across baseball, familiarity has become a non-factor. The new wave of decision makers are as versed in Wall Street jargon as they are in scout speak and aren't too prone to sentiment. (Nor should they be.) The Theo Epsteins and Andrew Friedmans of the world are savvy enough to avoid communicating to fans in those terms, but the mindset is still there. Players are assets, and transactions are opportunities to add value to the franchise. The bond between a player and the team's fan base may be given lip service in the media, but in reality, it matters not at all, or very little. As for the players, the bottom line is almost always the ultimate deciding factor—he's going to go where the dollars flow.

Sometimes, the sentimental and the pragmatic line up nicely. That's what I was thinking when the first messages popped up in my Twitter stream this week bearing the news of Prince Fielder's new contract in Detroit. The kneejerk reaction of many was that the deal was absurdly bloated. (It was.) Others thought Detroit moved well ahead of the competition in the AL Central. (As a Royals fan, that was my second thought.) If you're a Tigers fan, you might have jumped up on your desk and started doing the Dougie. (Can't blame you.) Me, I just thought it was cool that Prince was going to play for the same team on which his father made a name for himself. It's not clear why I should care.

Long before there was Prince Fielder, there was Bill Caudill, one of the first beneficiaries of the super-agent's skills.

In 1981, the Seattle Mariners had no closer. Seven Mariners saved at least one game, and nobody saved more than eight. Shane Rawley, he of the eight, walked more batters than he struck out, with an ERA worse than the league average. In March of 1982, he gave up 12 runs in 11 spring training innings. Days before the season began, Rawley was traded to the Yankees for Bill Caudill and Gene Nelson, both young pitchers, and cash. Saves weren’t quite such a big deal yet—just one pitcher in the American League had saved more than 20 in the strike-shortened 1981 season, and only five reached even a dozen—so the Mariners entered the 1982 season without a closer.

But Caudill pitched well, surprisingly well, and in Seattle’s 15th game, Caudill earned his first save. The trade to Seattle "was the biggest break of my life,” he said after the game. “I just love being here. I'm finally getting a chance to play. I was a mop-up man.” He would get 26 saves that year and 26 the next. In 1984, he was traded to the A’s, where he saved 36 games and made his first All-Star team. After that season, he was traded once again, to the Blue Jays, and that’s where the fun begins.

With Braun's hearing on Thursday and the BBWAA Awards dinner on Saturday, the end of the Ryan Braun saga may finally be in sight.

Where are we in the Ryan Braun saga? The initial report—a report based off of leaked information of a confidential process—came almost exactly a month ago and was followed by a flurry of activity: spirited denials from the Braun camp, analysis of the testing process, sources from the Brewers' camp claiming "highly unusual" circumstances, analysis of the appeal process, more anonymous sources claiming odd, "highest ever-recorded" levels of testosterone, confusing reports about a "second test" passed by Braun, analysis of Braun's denial, stories coming out about false-positives found in the minor leagues, ominous tweets from former MVPs, debates over whether his MVP should be revoked... I'm pretty sure someone even visited the Fortress of Solitude in hopes that it would help tell us what really happened. And that's just what happened before things started getting weird. If you followed the Braun case even a little bit back in December, you probably heard the rumor that Braun failed the test due to a medication he was taking for an, ahem, personal problem. It was difficult to get a grasp on everything in the wake of the announcement, to say the least.

But then things went quiet—as well they should. The drug-testing process was designed to be confidential. Mistakes happen, tests get overturned. If a player fails the first step (or four) in the process, he still has a path to innocence. As long as the player is moving along that path, the public should never know what's happening. It's only when a player has exhausted all available options and has thus been found guilty of failing the drug policy should that information be made public. It took a week or so (and the Christmas holiday break) for people to remember that about the Braun case, but news finally dried up as Major League Baseball and Braun's people took the necessary steps to determine Braun's guilt or innocence.

While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

As teams and players settle in arbitration or avoid it entirely, refresh your memory on how the process works.

While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

Having just returned from the strange planet known as Mexico City, I finally nailed down the Professor—who isn’t actually a professor—for a little one-on-one. It was a pointed conversation between two men with similar names and different approaches. I took a casual stroll over to his Brooklyn location, a place that could be the billboard that advertises all the reasons people with seemingly useless liberal arts degrees have damaged the earth. Earlier that day, the Professor seemed excited to inform me that he has the technology to open the first of two entryway doors from the interior of his own apartment, placing the burden on my fingers to press the appropriate button to set in motion the technological advances he seems so smitten with. Apparently having such technology is how hipsters with crappy apartments judge themselves against other hipsters with crappy apartments. It’s like people with doormen or great smiles: Once you live with that luxury, you can’t really feel any pain.

After I press the appropriate button, I can hear his ego over the intercom as he once again makes me aware that he has the power to open the door with the touch of a button. He’s like a child who just discovered that the moon and sun are different objects in the sky, and passionately points out that distinction when applicable. I allow him the time to relish in his newly-discovered modern age and wait for the door to unsecure. A man with a curious smirk and a familiar face meets me at the top of the third-floor stairs; it’s a face I’ve seen my entire life in some form or the other. He invites me in and immediately offers me a glass of chilled gin. I decline because it’s hours before the day hits noon, and I’m uneasy that such an offer was made in the first place. He’s wearing an oversized sombrero that makes him look like a bad gringo cartoon and a sweater that is not only incongruent to the aesthetic he is putting forth, but looks like something an elderly Peruvian woman would wear on the journey to her deathbed. I expected a more established presence; for all the pomp and talk of handsome style, the Professor wasn’t showing me either. From the jump, he was letting the name we conveniently share go to spoil.

Now that Texas came out on top in the Yu Darvish bidding, negotiations can begin, but if the Daisuke Matsuzaka situation is any indication, that doesn't mean the hard part is over.

While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

Yu Darvish may be the Rangers' for fhe taking, but as Joe Sheehan noted in the following article, which originally ran as a "Prospectus Today" column on November 29, 2006, post-posting contract talks are a high-stakes game.